Re: doc-view.el --- View PDF/PostStript/DVI files in Emacs

[Bill Clementson <billclem@gmail.com>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> [ Please guys, this is a sources-only newsgroup. ]
>
>>> Well, why do you think you have to wait?  Go on with your work and
>>> eventually the *DocView* buffer pops up.  (That's much better in the
>>> current version now.)
>
>> The convert process seems very resource hungry as my Powerbook G4
>> slows to a crawl (and is basically unusable) when I'm converting a
>> large (2MB) PDF file. On small PDF's, it's still usable (but slow). I
>> thought that a batch option would provide an alternative that might
>> not be as intrusive.
>
> Think about it hard: since you can do other things in Emacs in the mean
> time, it's already running "in the background".  If your G4 becomes
> basically unusable, the best guess is that the conversion process uses up
> all disk and memory resources, in which case there's not much you can do:
> even lowering its CPU-priority will not buy you much responsiveness.

I was thinking more in terms of kicking off a process that wasn't tied
to the Emacs calling process in any way (at present, there is a
process sentinel that notifies the doc-view caller that the conversion
has completed) and thus could be either reduced in priority or
scheduled for a different time. 

- Bill